A Mother's Displacement

As another day passes with no sleep, my body aches.  The necessary decompression that must occur for the body to rejuvenate is overdue.  I will have to find a place to sleep in the near future.   I cannot continue in this fashion, because unless there is some subliminal reason why I deserve to be tortured, I cannot expend the majority of my waking energy fending off  bullshit.  That is what I do in Fayettenam.  I feel there are others in my shoes.  I am not the only one struggling to get through each day maintaining a semblance of sanity.  I have curtailed my intake of bourbon, which was my cure for insomnia.  The brutal reality now besets me.  I have known this to be true for some time, but I am in a period of denial.  I am doing my best to live normally in an abnormal place for me.  The solution has been to discard my usual life of music and substitute a life of mundanity.  I do not dislike this mundanity.  It is comforting. It is the only thing allowing me get through each day maintaining a semblance of sanity.  Music does not work.  I have known this for some time.  Because my parents lives have revolved around music for so long, and because my parents are geriactrics,  music only causes me pain.  Either it reminds them of what they no longer have, or it reminds me of what I no longer have.  Over the years I have learned not to be a fatalist. It is not inevitable, and it is not productive.  Contrarily one must adopt an attitude of faith.  Things can and will change, and there are circumstances of existence that predicate stagnation. Life in America today is one of them.  Slowly I am realizing this, and it does not make my plight any more palatable.  Not only am I battling my parents' musical demons, I am battling a gross and widespread public ignorance and lack of respect of the arts.  It is pretty dismal.  Also I have learned that as an artist one can lead society.  When things get dark as they are now (the Dark Ages) a Renaissance can be created by the creativity, intellect, and tenacity of artists.  I fall into that catogory.  It, while dabbling in artistic activity, it crucial to remain cognizant of reality.  My reality is I am living in the home of my geriatric parents.  My father has moved on to a nursing facilty, but my mother is left.  My position is not that much different than hers, when she was experiencing the dementia of my father.  I am watching her slowly fade away back to something with which I am not familiar.  It is a challenge being pushed and prodded daily by what seems like a selfish child.  It is a power struggle, and I cannot lose.  If I do, my parents will outlive me.  My grandmother achieved this outliving one of her sons at the age of 104.  I am not willing to give up my musical responsibility yet, and it is not selfish.  In certain ways I was chosen for this job, and I listen to the Creator.  He is not around much these days, and as I reflect never was He present while I have lived in 'Nam.  This is a clear indicator that 'Nam is hell.  Truly for me it is a living hell.  Experiencing it is not unlike the other hellish episodes I have had in my life.  It is interesting most of these revolve around Fayetteville.  It is because my parents are here. Consequently instead of engaging in a singular life of music, I am engaging in a plural life of family.  As the son I have very little control.  It possiblty is the greatest political challenge, navigating the aging of your parents.  With no sleep the prospect of being productive with my artistic music is naught.  You cannot be productive when you are too tired to think.  Consequently you act instinctually, and this I loathe.  This is how my aging mother operates.  Instead of thinking about issues and addressing them with logic, she engages in stream-of-consciousness drama on a high scale.  It has gotten worse.  In the last few weeks my ears are so tired from hearing this unfiltered barrage of disjunct communication.  I'm not sure it can be called communication.  It is not.  She is not talking to me.  She is talking at me only reflecting each and every minute detail of her day.  I am required like a mindless five-year-old to sit and listen.  It is numbing, emotionally taxing, and depressing.  In addition to my lack of sleep the majority of my waking hours are as a sponge listening to irrelevant b.s.  At times I have tried to explain that this indulgence in selfish actualization is detrimental.  It is.  Nothing that she experiences and therefore conveys to me in a mindless discourse is productive in any way.  Contrarily it is harmful, and this is why she feels the need to displace it on me.  My ears are tired, as is my soul.